When Humble Glory arrived in a stock crate at Sophia Hill’s Mansfield property in 2017, she never dreamt of just how far the off-the-track Thoroughbred would take her. Fast forward to 2023, and together they’ve just finished on the podium at their first five-star event.

As an eventer, completing your first five-star event is a serious career milestone; to finish on the podium is icing on the cake. For 25-year-old Sophia Hill and her 11-year-old off-the-track Thoroughbred Humble Glory, aka Hughie, finishing third at their five-star debut was a career-defining moment.

“I was pretty stoked,” says Sophia of her performance at Adelaide Equestrian Festival. “A five-star start has always been what we’ve been working towards… it was delayed with Covid, but we were probably better off waiting so we were more prepared.”

The pair were certainly prepared – the cross country, normally the most anxiety-inducing phase for anyone stepping up to the level, was a walk in the park for Sophia and her “cross-country machine”. He was the only horse to go under time.

“I guess going to a five-star you have in your mind that it’s going to be a big step up, but I think we were really ready and well prepared. When I walked the course, I felt comfortable with it; I wasn’t worried about it. You know you’re going have to ride well, but it seemed really doable,” she recalls. “Hughie gave me a fantastic ride; he actually made it feel easy, which is crazy to say. He was so good.”

Sophia says she actually wasn’t too surprised in the end that they were able to go under time. “I know that Adelaide is typically hard to make time, and I knew looking from previous years’ results that riders rarely made time. However, Hughie’s never had a cross country jump fault and he’s an amazing galloper. He usually always makes the time, even when other horses don’t; he’s a very fast horse. I went in there with a plan that I wanted to make time. I’d worked out all my minute markers and where I needed to be ahead and I didn’t find it hard, I just had to keep galloping.

“My dressage isn’t what I’d love it to be, and so for me to be competitive I need to jump a double clear. So that was my goal: to do the best I could in the dressage, which unfortunately didn’t go to plan, but then jump a double clear.”

Following the dressage phase, Sophia was 14th on 40.9 penalties and it wasn’t the test she’d hoped for. “The biggest struggle for Hughie is being uphill in the dressage, because he’s just not built that way,” she explains. “He’s been getting way better overall at home and in the lead-up to Adelaide I was happy with how he was going, but he didn’t cope with the atmosphere very well. The crowd and the clapping in particular… as I went into the arena they obviously clapped for the rider before, and he really didn’t cope with that.

“The test wasn’t a disaster, but there were parts that in my mind were a disaster. The centreline and the extended canters… he was basically in cross-country mode. He got his head above the bit and just went really fast, which was disappointing because it hadn’t been happening in the lead-up. But a lot of it still went well and I was happy with a lot of the work. I was just really disappointed with those particular movements. Hopefully he’ll get better there with time.”

Hughie, of course, put his enthusiasm to good use in the cross-country phase, rising to fifth place, and then a clear in the show jumping secured their podium finish. “He’s just a really good jumper; he wants to be clean and wants to do the right thing. I was thrilled that he jumped clear; I knew he was very capable of doing so. He’s done a lot of straight show jumping and jumped clear rounds at 1.35m quite often, which is even bigger. But for it to all come together when you need it to, and to jump clear when it mattered, was really exciting.

“I haven’t ever show jumped after doing a five-star cross country, so I was a little unsure how tired he would feel the next day. While it didn’t feel like I was on a completely fresh horse, he tried really hard and he definitely wanted to leave all those rails up.”

“He’s just a really
good jumper; he wants
to be clean.”

ARRIVED IN A STOCK CRATE

“He was a very unassuming off-the-track Thoroughbred who had raced, spelled, and then done a little bit of stock work,” recalls Sophia of Hughie when he first arrived at her Mansfield property in 2017 to sell on behalf of a friend.

A gelding by Bernardini out of Sharpen (Shovhog), Hughie raced as Camon Houdini and was trained by Gai Waterhouse – but he certainly wasn’t a stand-out on the track. He raced a handful of times, mostly on Victorian tracks, and finished his career over hurdles at Warrnambool where he was eighth of 11 starters. It was his best race result in terms of placings, but when he crossed the line 82.2 lengths behind the winner, it was time for a new career.

“I think they thought he was going to be quite good at jumps racing, but then he lost by 82 lengths! He always jumped quite big; when I first started jumping him, he was over-jumping everything… like just a classic, careful young horse. I think he must have done that when he was racing as well!” Sophia laughs.

“About a week after he arrived, I was blown away by his combination of scope, honesty and bravery. I thought he was a pretty nice horse and so I bought him from my friend with the view to selling him myself. Within three months, he had his first 95cm eventing start and won. He went so fast up the levels… within 18 months, he won the Young Rider Championship (equivalent to three-star level) at Adelaide. Within two years of being off the track, he then won at four-star level; he’s had a few wins at four-star. He was just such an honest and trainable horse, so I decided pretty early on not to sell him.”

INTERNATIONAL ASPIRATIONS

Next up for Hughie is a well-deserved break while Sophia prepares her two younger horses, Tulara Baltango and Seattle Park, for the two-star and three-star at Melbourne International Three-Day Event in June. Both have had really successful seasons to date.

“After his break, the plan is to just keep Hughie ticking along and try to make a plan for next year, whether we aim at Adelaide again or whether we take him overseas for a five-star, we haven’t decided yet,” explains Sophia.

Sophia and Hughie have the first part of their MER for the Paris Olympics thanks to their performance at Adelaide, however, Sophia’s pragmatic about Australian team selection. “It would obviously be amazing to get selected, but I’m not laying all my hopes on that as I’m quite realistic about my dressage score, it would need to improve to get selected.

“I’ve got a horse that has
just shown me he can jump
double clear at five-star level.”

“I’m of the mind that I’ve got a horse that has just shown me he can jump double clear at five-star level… it’s so hard to get a horse like that, and while nothing has been decided yet, I do think while I have him it would be amazing to go and compete at Badminton or Burghley.” EQ

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